Crossmark

Crossmark gives readers quick and easy access to the current status of an item of content. With one click, you can see if content has been updated, corrected or retracted and access valuable additional metadata provided by the publisher.

Benefits

Researchers and librarians can easily see the changes to the content they are reading, find out who funded the research, what licenses apply to the content and more.

Anyone can access the Crossmark metadata through our REST API, providing a myriad of opportunities for integration with other systems and analysis of changes to the scholarly record .

How it works

Publishers place the Crossmark button close to the title of an item of content on their web pages and in PDFs, and commit to informing us if there is an update such as a correction or retraction. They also send additional metadata such as authors’ ORCIDs and the funders behind the research.

When a reader clicks on the button a pop-up box appears that headlines the current status of the content: up-to-date, updates available, or retracted, and also displays all of the additional information. Watch the video below to find out more:

How to participate

Publishers participate in Crossmark by depositing additional metadata for their content and adding a snippet of code to their DOI landing pages to generate the Crossmark button and link. Find out more about how to get started.

Obligations & fees

As a publisher participating in Crossmark, you agree to:

Maintain your content and promptly register any updates

Include the Crossmark button on all digital formats (HTML, PDF, ePub)

Implement Crossmark using the script provided by us

Not alter the Crossmark button in any way other than adjusting its size.

To see which Crossref members are registering Crossmark information visit Participation Reports (beta). These reports give a clear picture for anyone to see the metadata Crossref has including Crossmark data. This is data that’s long been available via our Public REST API, now visualized.